Thursday, December 3, 2009

DEAN JOHNS ON "KILLER KLEPTOIDS"

For the benefit of those who can't afford or are too kedekut to subscribe to Malaysiakini, I'm reproducing this ribtickling and heartbreaking piece by one of my all-time favorite political columnists...

Trying to make sense of the political scenario in Malaysia is always a surreal experience. But at times it all seems so far-fetched and flat-out fantastic that I think I must have lost the plot.

Or else that I've actually been asleep all this time, trapped in some bizarre nightmare based on replays of all those hair-raising old Hollywood horror movies I used to frighten myself silly by sitting through.

At times like these I get desperate for some kind of reality check. So you can imagine how grateful I feel to the likes of Barry Wain, with his new biography of Dr Mahathir Mohamad, for reassuring me that the doctor isn't some scary childhood movie memory or figment of my fevered imagination, but is actually, if incredibly, the former long-time prime minister of Malaysia.

And that the Frankenstein monster the doctor created isn't just some filmic fable, but a real-life political machine that's still rampaging around the country wreaking havoc wherever it goes and indulging its insatiable appetite by devouring whatever it can get its hands on.

If you'd believe Barry Wain, and why wouldn't you, as long as he works for neither the Malaysian nor Singapore mainstream press, the BN machine has swallowed RM100 billion of Malaysians' money in the past 25 of its 52 years in power.

And according to Time magazine, economist Daniel Lian of Morgan Stanley Singapore estimates it's consumed about three times the amount estimated by Wain, or US$100 billion.

Here, in case you missed them, are a few highlights of this saga of monumental theft, fraud and embezzlement:

If that's not enough plundered billions to make you bilious, don't worry. It's just the tip of the iceberg. Or should I make that 'heistberg'? Whatever, it's a considerable quantity of loot for a government to steal from its citizens.

Heart-breaking human cost

How the Malaysian people have tolerated being robbed on such an epic scale for so long I can't begin to guess. Why so many millions of them never stopped voting for the doctor or his successors, or never chased any of them, King Kong-like, up to the top of the Twin Towers to his downfall and doom is a total mystery.

Unless, of course, that like me they've been assuming that the whole thing was so unbelievable that it must be just a movie, and gone on scoffing their popcorn and kuaci as though the horror would eventually end and they could safely return from this harsh reel world to an altogether happier real one.

Or maybe they were thinking that, as long it was only money the monster was after, they'd be safe if they let it have its fill, and that with luck they might score their share of any small change that happened to slip through its fingers.

What they failed to realise, however, is that the BN money-chomping monster's been in league all along with those other fixtures of this long-running Malaysian fright-flick, the werewolves of the police and MACC, the body-snatchers of the internal security ministry, the vampires of commerce, contracting and the civil service, and the droids of the mainstream media.

With a monster cast this creepy to contend with, it's no wonder so many otherwise potentially sentient citizens have been turned into such political and ethical zombies.

With the watchdogs of the law at their throats, thousands of blood-suckers with their fangs in their necks and hundreds of make-believe journalists busy blinding their eyes, deafening their ears and dumbing their minds, some people are bound to get somewhat confused.

Which brings us to the fact that the tragedy is not so much the amount of money, land and other public property that BN and its minions have stolen and continue to steal but the heart-breaking human cost of it all.

The financial toll taken by the police, MACC and judiciary in corruption is chicken-feed compared with the priceless protections and trust that they've stolen from the people, not to mention the countless lives they've stolen from 'suspects' in staged 'shootouts' and 'questioning' in custody.

Revenge of the voters

The billions looted and squandered by the government and its cronies are nothing compared with the human rights, educations, opportunities, hopes, dreams and futures they've stolen from Malaysians born on the 'wrong' side of the screen that the ideologues of BN have erected between the races and religions on which to play their wayang kulit of 1Malaysia.

And now, having skinned the Malaysians alive in every conceivable fashion from financial to spiritual, they've had the hide to introduce a goods and services tax, thus adding even more to the swag of oil and tax revenues that BN has traditionally siphoned-off from behind the impenetrable screen of the official secrets act.

They're also, I see, still paying Najib Abdul Razak's airfare and considerable expenses to go around the world robbing Malaysia of even more of its Mahathir-ravaged international reputation with remarks like his recent one in New York that "Malaysia's message of reforms and transformation must be told to foreign investors."

Who does he think he's kidding about Malaysia as long as it's still business as usual for him and his gang of BN bandits? Doesn't he realise that embassies and high commissions report the truth back to their home governments?

And that trade commissioners and reputable global financial media keep investors informed of the larcenies of national governments like Malaysia's?

Sometimes I think Najib's recited his script so often he's started to almost believe it himself.

I certainly hope so. Because the more over-confident that he and his coalition cronies become that their Attack of the Killer Kleptoids production is set to run permanently, the more shocked they'll be by its inevitable sequel, Revenge of the Voters from Hell.

5 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Does it always have to take a foreigner or someone that sounds like one to blast to us yet again this sentimental poem of Death and Horror right at our own doorsteps ? While we sleep happily ? Surely we have only ourselves to blame ! Question is who now to lead us to salvation, other than AI ? and how many more 50 years of blissfool suffering ?

Anon @ 9:08PM - We tend to believe that evolution/revolution happens only on the political level and so we're constantly looking for a new messiah, but when one does show up, we invariably try to crucify him or her. I have learnt that there are so many different layers to experience and political change is one of the less interesting (but nonetheless essential) layers. The really important transformations occur within the inner planes, triggering radical shifts of perception and understanding which compel us to individually awaken and liberate ourselves from acquired or inherited cultural and genetic imprints. As we reclaim our sovereignty and divinity as physically incarnate individualized souls, most of the complex problems that beset us now will simply evaporate like the faint echoes of a bad dream.

Anon @ 11:05PM - PR bandits? Those people haven't actually experienced being the government yet - at least not the federal government, and don't control Petronas and Bank Negara... so how can you call them "bandits" when they haven't even got anywhere near the piggybank? You're just uttering brainless poppycock! Anyone who says boring things like "Ahhh, these politicians are all the same" or "Just give Pakatan Rakyat 10 years ands they'll become just like BN" is talking through his unwashed arse. The whole point is to overhaul the PDRM, the judiciary, the civil service, abolish all repressive laws, and liberate the mass media from Umno/BN control. Once that's accomplished, government will exist merely to keep the show running - government will no longer operate under the misconception that it OWNS the country.